


Irresistible

by Supertights



Category: New Warriors
Genre: Awkward Conversations, Crush at First Sight, F/M, Fluff, Gen, Team as Family, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-01 21:51:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2789000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Supertights/pseuds/Supertights
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Robbie is familiar with crushes, just not with being the object of one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Irresistible

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kikibug13](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kikibug13/gifts).



> Thank you to my awesome beta, lanalucy, who once again swooped in a saved the day. :)

It was weird to be on the receiving end of a crush. Robbie was more familiar with being the crush-er than the crush-ee. He’d spent most of his teenage years in a state of enhanced hormonal confusion and sporting heavy crushes on both his curvy and beefy team mates.

As the focus of Aracely’s ferocious crush, it was hard to ignore. Kaine had started sharpening his wrist talons every time Robbie and Aracely were even in the same room together.

“Why did she pick me?” he’d asked.

Selah shrugged. “Started that first day she met you. No offense, but I don’t see it.”

Mark nodded agreement. “Crush at first sight. No offense, but it’s weird.”

Robbie glared at both of them, it was hard not to take double offence.

“Vance, what do I do?” Robbie begged his best friend.

“I'm your model of success for breaking crushes?” said Vance, amused. “Robbie, I have no answers for you. My usual method of dealing with it is to pretend it’s not happening at all. You saw how well that worked out for me at the Academy.” 

  

Robbie was eating breakfast alone in the mountain’s huge kitchen a few days later when Aracely sat down next to him, closer than he would've liked and eating a tub of double fudge ice cream.

Kaine appeared moments later, getting a coffee and sitting opposite them.

“‘Cely,” said Robbie, through a mouthful of cereal. “That’s not a healthy breakfast.” He spoke in his new role as the poster child for healthy living.

She took a long intake of breath and he cringed in anticipation. “Robbie,” she began brightly. “It’s been brought to my attention-- multiple times by multiple people that barely know me and are making huge assumptions about things-- that I am focusing uncomfortably on your _darker aspect_ and that it’s problematic for the team, it’s unhealthy, probably unrequited, just plain weird because you’re you, and -” she paused to take another breath. Kaine fixed him with a look from the other side of the table. “That I am too young to date an older man.”

“Uh, buh,” replied Robbie, intelligently. He’d never thought of himself as particularly old or even mature. He’d also never thought about dating anyone like Aracely, setting aside that she was far too young, she was also a lot like he used to be and he wasn’t sure he could be around someone that was too much like old Robbie.

“I do find your dark angsty alter-ego irresistible,” she continued thoughtfully, slipping a spoonful of ice cream into her mouth. “What did the suit feel like when you were wearing it? Did it hurt when the spikes cut you? Do you still cut?” Her eyes had taken on a dreamy faraway appearance.

“What did we agree, Aracely? We agreed ixnay on the enanc- _pay!_ ” he murmured urgently, looking up to find Kaine sporting a particularly stabby look. “Ixnay, ixnay, ixnay!”

“But--” she said, blinking, eyes suddenly wide as she looked right through him, in that way she had when she’d first taken a really good look at him and spotted Penance lurking in his psyche.

He interrupted her, making a slashing motion with his hand. “No buts, ‘Cely. No buts. I am a mentally well-balanced guy, ask anyone. No darkness. No angst. As I've said before, I don’t want to talk to you about this again. Also, it’s kind of totally inappropriate to fantasize about me as the other guy.”

“But--” she looked confused. “Fantasize? I didn’t say _fantasize_.”

Kaine snorted coffee out of his nose. “Okay, I gotta just intervene here. Seriously? Mentally well balanced? That’s what you’re going with? Nobody is as chipper as you are without some serious ‘psychological hang-ups’.” He hooked his fingers into invisible quotation marks for emphasis. “Take it from an expert in psychological hang-ups.”

“What?” Robbie looked at him, scowling fiercely. “What the hell do you mean by that?”

Kaine turned to his ward. “Aracely, listen to me, as your guardian, I am telling you that Speedball is too old for you, too unstable, too flakey, too perky, too-- too _blond!_ Talk to him in a few years, maybe by then he actually will be as mentally well-balanced as he claims.”

“I’ll be _dead_ by then, Kaine!” she shouted, angrily throwing her spoon back into the tub of ice cream. She pointed at Robbie. “I am coming looking for you in a few years but I won’t be attracted to well-balanced so don’t fix _anything_ , and you,” she pointed at Kaine. “You are not the _boss_ of me!” She pushed her chair away from the table and stomped out of the kitchen, poking her tongue out at Kaine as she left the room.

“You will _not_ be dead, I'm your champion remember?!” Kaine shouted after her.

“Uh, ah--” burbled Robbie, breakfast forgotten. He glared at Kaine. “You call that helping?” he grumbled.

“I was helping her, not you. Aracely means it when she says she will find you in a few years. I guarantee it. If you even look at her funny before she’s old enough-- I will bury your body where no one will find it.” Kaine smiled unpleasantly.

“I can never tell when you’re joking,” said Robbie, shuddering.

“Because I'm so well-known for my jokes,” Kaine dead-panned.


End file.
